Dear Editor:
I’d like to comment about the North Bergen Reporter’s March 31 article entitled School Budget Adopted.
In the article, Business Administrator Steven Somick said “We are also in negotiations, the goal is to keep everybody employed”. Somick also remarked “If the budget is voted down, we’ll look to see where we can make cuts that will be least hurtful to the children.”
The purpose of taxation is to enable government to provide essential services to its citizens. It wasn’t meant to create or maintain public jobs. Public employees are not sacred. In difficult economic times, there’s no reason why public employees should be immune to the same hardships of lay-offs and salary freezes as workers in the private sector.
Also, teachers and administrators shouldn’t use children as objects of pity to get the money they want for their salaries and benefits. That’s disgraceful. Lack of school funding doesn’t prevent students from studying and doing their homework. When I was a public school student, my parents never blamed my poor grades on insufficient funding. Instead, they blamed me for my poor study habits and lack of effort.
It’s about time that municipal office holders have pity for the taxpayers.
John Carcich